Now RapGenius.com doesn’t appear on the first page of results for a search of “Rap Genius”
Readjusting their rankings is one thing, but that is just google breaking their own service. If people have typed "rap genius" into google, there is a reasonable chance that they might want to get to the thing named "rap genius", which is on page 5 in the search I just did.
And the thing is, that nearly all the rest of the results are not for rap geniuses, which presumably would be another reason for searching the term, but are just blogs and news sites reporting about the company Rap Genius.
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Given that the public are fairly ambivalent about google and so are not likely to take google's side too much in stuff like this, and if you can get your rating fixed afterward by being nice, couldn't a public spat with google like this actually be good publicity, compared to google not making that much of a fuss and merely adjusting their rankings to adjust for the seo tactics used, rather than acting punitively.
If I was looking at this as a marketing droid, all I would see is that google have replaced the position my main site used to take, with loads of articles about my company that then link to my site, which makes it look as though loads of folk are interested in the company while Google are publicly burying the link, which sparks people's curiousity.
Is not that I think gaming the ranking is particularly good business practice, I just don't think this is particularly good tactics on google's part.
No, this is google enforcing a harsh penalty for one site to discourage other people from trying to game search which basically makes us all suffer through content farm links, etc.
I don't agree. I see the need for punishment of this kind of behavior, but removing the site from a Google search that seems to specifically be looking for that site is a bridge too far in my book.
It's pretty much the standard harsh google slapdown. Has happened to many other sites. I imagine they'll get out of jail sooner rather than later. It's meant as a punishment I think, not just a correction of the terms that they ranked for unethically.
Readjusting their rankings is one thing, but that is just google breaking their own service. If people have typed "rap genius" into google, there is a reasonable chance that they might want to get to the thing named "rap genius", which is on page 5 in the search I just did.
And the thing is, that nearly all the rest of the results are not for rap geniuses, which presumably would be another reason for searching the term, but are just blogs and news sites reporting about the company Rap Genius.
edit -
Given that the public are fairly ambivalent about google and so are not likely to take google's side too much in stuff like this, and if you can get your rating fixed afterward by being nice, couldn't a public spat with google like this actually be good publicity, compared to google not making that much of a fuss and merely adjusting their rankings to adjust for the seo tactics used, rather than acting punitively.
If I was looking at this as a marketing droid, all I would see is that google have replaced the position my main site used to take, with loads of articles about my company that then link to my site, which makes it look as though loads of folk are interested in the company while Google are publicly burying the link, which sparks people's curiousity.
Is not that I think gaming the ranking is particularly good business practice, I just don't think this is particularly good tactics on google's part.